


Renovation II

by De_Nugis



Series: Renovation [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-23
Updated: 2011-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-22 23:28:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home Improvement and non-verbal communication.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Renovation II

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to Renovation. But neither is much with the plot; all you need to know is that Sam has been mute since the events of 6.22.

Sam doesn’t make a noise, even when he has nightmares. The first few months, at Bobby’s, Dean had got used to jolting awake to Sam standing frozen against the wall or by the window, staring rigidly at nothing. Dean would talk, random stuff – Star Trek and engine parts and the time he and Dad stayed with some crazy old hunter Dad hadn’t fought with yet, a mile and a half up a dirt road in New England woods. Must have been Sam’s second year at Stanford. They’d all three got hammered on some foul home-made apple wine shit and gone joyriding on a road grader. Not a memory of Dad Dean’s revisited much since. God knows why it came back just then.

“Should’ve seen him, Sam. I should’ve taken pictures. No way I’d believe it without evidence. But I swear to God, it’s true. Dad, whooping like a kid on a roller coaster, going 20 miles per hour on a rusted old road grader at three in the morning.”

Gradually the stiff set of Sam’s muscles would relax, his eyes would track Dean again, and eventually he’d climb back into bed and fall asleep.

Maybe it’s that long ago road grader incident makes Dean choose Vermont, when he buys a tumbledown house with dragon’s gold.

 

At the house they have separate rooms. Sam had slung his duffel in one and Dean’s in another the first night, back when they had nothing but sleeping bags and two plastic crates for furniture. And OK, Sam’s doing better, and maybe it was hard, Dean focused on him all the time, trying to read him. Sam might want a space for uninterpreted silence. Or maybe, now they’ve left the motel life, Sam just wants a chance to jerk off in bed. The shower routine can get old.

Dean grows used to sleeping without another person’s breathing in the room, stops himself from crossing the hall when he wakes in the small hours to make sure Sam isn’t playing flashback Statues. And the jerking off thing _is_ a perk.

Only, seems Dean hasn’t caught the noiseless nightmare trick. There’s a night when he crashes through rotted charring in the living room floor, flames skittering like rats in the ceiling. Souls in their tattered constructs of flesh are bending over him, holding him down. Their limbs twist, fire eats their faces. He’s in the cellar, down where the toolchest is. The souls stuff his throat with smoke till he chokes. The house is burning. The house is burning up there, around Sam. Sam is burning in silence because his voice didn’t make it out. Dean can see it, the voice, here in hell, caged in crooked knives. Trying to wriggle free, to say his name.

Dean’s own shout strangles in his stinging throat. He can hear its echo over the painful thud of his heart. Slowly he takes in the give of the mattress against his back, the wool of the blanket he’s clutching, and then Sam, looming dimly at the door. Fuck. Waking up to Dean’s bad dreams, that’s just what Sam needs.

“Sorry,” Dean croaks.

Sam shakes his head impatiently, comes to sit on the bed. His hand falls solid on Dean’s shoulder. He looks a question into Dean’s face.

“I’m fine, Sam,” says Dean. “Go back to sleep. Sorry for waking you up.”

Sam’s hand slides from Dean’s shoulder across his chest, rests over the slowing triphammer of his heart. He rubs a little, the way Dean dimly remembers Mom doing when he had a cold. The bed dips comfortably under Sam’s warm weight.

“Go back to bed,” says Dean again.

Sam sighs and stands up. A moment later he’s back in the room. Carrying his pillow. Dean glares at him. Sam glares back, jaw a stubborn line in the moonlight. Dean’s not up to having this argument with his mute, obstinate giant of a brother. He moves over. Sam settles beside him. Within minutes he’s overheated the bed like a fucking furnace. Dean falls asleep and doesn’t wake up till nine. Sam must have killed the alarm.

Next night when they head up Sam touches Dean’s arm, tilts his head towards Dean’s room. “Whatever,” says Dean, and Sam comes in with him. He steals three fourths of the blankets and Dean’s still too hot. He sleeps like a log. Which means Sam must have, too.

Dean figures, if they’re going back to jerking off in the shower, they’d better get that upstairs bathroom done.

 

The job turns out to be a bitch. Whoever put in the original pipes must have fancied himself a mad scientist or an abstract artist or both. Dean ends up having to tear out most of the walls and redo everything. Sam’s major contributions are insisting in elaborate mime on a fancy lo-flo toilet, unleashing his latent OCD on patterning the slate floor, and crowding Dean against the half-tiled wall to kiss him.

It’s not exactly a surprise. It’s been coming at least since that November morning when Dean let his hand circle Sam’s wrist, not holding on, not letting go. Not a surprise, no. Except that it is. Now. This actual moment. Finally.

Dean’s pulse leaps fast in his throat, but time slows bit by bit, like a fan spinning down when it’s been turned off. One of Sam’s hands grazes his neck, fingers pushing under his t-shirt, along his collarbone. The other angles Dean’s head this way and that, touching delicately with the same intense precision Sam’s been bestowing on his damn slate tiles. There’s nothing delicate about his mouth, though, crashing into Dean’s with months – years? – of pent-up certainty. Dean’s breathless, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Turns out Dean’s system works on Sam just as well as on oxygen.

Sam breaks off, leans back, hand still twisted in Dean’s t-shirt. He tilts his head in the gesture that asks _OK?_ , touches the corner of Dean’s mouth. Dean can feel the smile tugging his lips up, silent answer to Sam’s silent question. _Fucking yeah_.

“Why now?” he asks. “Fumes do something for you?”

Sam gestures to his own cheekbone, raises his eyebrows, gestures at Dean. Dean touches his face. His hand comes away grey and gritty. Sam nods emphatically. _You had grout on your face._ Oh. Good enough.

Dean picks up his grout float and his stack of tile and gets back to work.

 

Fixing a house for no one but themselves, Dean tells time by task. The hours and days all come out different sizes, parts getting finished in a pattern, maybe, but not in order. He and Sam always work the same room, but nothing has to match up for them to be in synch. Sometimes now when they both hit a break at the same time they’ll stop and kiss, claw of a hammer Sam hasn’t put down digging into Dean’s shoulderblade, Dean licking into Sam’s mouth, fingers tangled warm in Sam’s hair, Sam’s heart thumping steady and articulate against Dean’s chest. But they don’t press on to epic makeout sessions and sex. Doesn’t feel like they have to. They can finish this bit before they start the next.

The upstairs bathroom is done; they’re plastering what had been Sam’s bedroom. When Sam freezes midtask, plaster dripping from his trowel, or jacknifes bolt upright in bed at night next to Dean, Dean reaches out automatically. Brings Sam back with a nudge of his shoulder, a brush of fingers on the back of his neck or the inside of his wrist. He’s getting almost as silent as Sam, arguing paint vs varnish for the floor in a vigorous back and forth of eyerolls, swift kicks to the ankle, rude gestures, and a brief, inconclusive wrestling match. They go with paint.

 

February Sam hits a bad patch. No particular reason Dean can discern. Maybe it’s being shut in, snow drifting round the house, though they’re out every day, shoveling, splitting wood for the ancient wood stove, driving over icy roads to the laundromat and the grocery store and the building supplies place they’re single-handedly supporting. Dean only realizes how easy the interchanges of touch and gesture and expression have become when those fall silent, too, when he finds himself working with a massive, opaque stranger at his side. There’s no more kissing.

Frustration builds and Dean knows it’s fear. Dragon gold won’t last forever. Sooner or later Dean will have to get work. What’s he supposed to do, leave Sam half-catatonic at home? Park him in a corner on some construction site? Go back and mooch off of Bobby for good? He fights the urge to shake Sam, yell at him, _talk to me, just tell me_. He tries giving Sam books – maybe Sam can show him, point to something, find someone else’s words for what’s in his head. But Sam sweeps his hands over the pages like he’s wiping the letters out, shuts the books, turns away.

There’s a night Sam doesn’t come to bed, snarls soundlessly at Dean when Dean tries to sit up with him. In the morning the kitchen table is strewn with blank pieces of paper crossed with thick black bars. Sam’s hunched on the couch in the living room, awake, staring at nothing. Dean sits down beside him, puts a hand on his shoulder. Sam doesn’t react.

Dean tightens his grip till it’s got to hurt, thumb digging bruisingly into Sam’s collarbone. Sam’s head turns slowly towards him. Dean wraps his arms around Sam’s shoulders and lies back, pulling Sam down on top of him, stiff but unresisting. Dean tightens his arms till his muscles are locked and straining. Sam starts to shake. For a few long minutes he shudders silently while Dean hangs on. Then tension leeches slowly out of him. His head settles against Dean’s shoulder, breath soft and warm on Dean’s neck. Dean doesn’t loosen his hold till Sam’s all the way asleep. Dean’s wide awake. The room is bright with the relief of having said something essential.

 

In March the world turns to icy mud.

Dean’s the monogamous sort, but there’s no denying, before another winter they’ll need a truck. Something with all wheel drive. The fourth time the Impala slides into the ditch halfway down the driveway Sam throws up his hands dramatically and makes to march home. Dean hauls him back. Sam glares at him poisonously as they set their shoulders to the car and push. She doesn’t budge; she’s stuck good this time. Dean is sweating, hot droplets mixing with the cold sting of sleet. He strips out of his coat, pushes again, Sam straining beside him. There’s a moment of ponderous give and the car shifts half out of the ditch. Then she slides back, throwing Dean against the bank. Cold mud soaks his back, his legs, his ass. It spatters Sam, too. Small consolation.

Sam pulls him upright, laughing silently, white teeth gleaming through the splashes of mud on his face. Dean gives him the finger, throws his weight against the car again. She needs their help; he can’t drown Sam in the ditch just yet. A moment later he looks up. Sam’s smile has faded. His eyes are on Dean’s shoulders, where his soaked shirt is clinging. Dean can feel the gaze like a hand, stroking down his spine, lower. Slow heat washes through Dean.

“You gonna get your hands dirty and help here, princess?” he asks. Sam braces his feet against the bank and pushes. The car rocks free, back onto solid road.

 

Sam doesn’t make a noise, turns out, even when his hands fasten warm and demanding on Dean’s arms the moment Dean sets foot in the bedroom, light-headed from the scalding shower. Doesn’t make a noise when he backs Dean against the bureau, ducks his head to lick water from Dean’s neck, when he bites under Dean’s jaw, nips careful and precise at Dean’s earlobe. Not when he presses the hard hot line of his dick against Dean’s hip, where the towel’s fallen down, and Dean growls low in his throat, drags at Sam’s t-shirt, pulls him clumsily towards the bed.

Sam’s pretty fucking eloquent, all the same. The scrape of his teeth over a nipple and the brush of his lips on the inside of a thigh, his forearm strong across Dean’s chest while he kisses and bites at Dean’s neck till Dean is arching and moaning, and his hands, Sam’s huge, strong, careful hands, cupping Dean’s face like it’s something to wonder at, tracing over his chest and belly again and again, mapping scars and the ghosts of scars, wrapping around Dean’s dick, and oh, God, now Sam isn’t silent any more because Dean can hear his breathing gone fast and hard, can maybe hear his heart beating and the rush of his blood through arteries and veins.

“Fuck me,” says Dean. “Sam. Sammy. Want you to fuck me.”

Sam surges over him, kisses him wet and hard, and his hand moves down, stroking over Dean’s balls, pressing between his cheeks. Dean spreads his legs, feels Sam’s finger at his entrance. Then Sam freezes, looks up with ludicrous concern, shakes his head. It takes Dean a moment to think past the thundering in his ears what Sam is on about. Oh.

“Bedside table,” says Dean.

Sam hasn’t needed a “You bought lube?” expression before. Seems he had one ready, though. Fucking Sam, breaking the mood with his damn eyebrows. So Dean bought lube. Big effing deal. He’d about reached the point of embroidering his initials on pillowcases, waiting around for Sam to fuck him. Dean fishes the tube out of the drawer and tosses it petulantly onto the bed, and Sam is laughing at him again, just like he had before, in the mud. Dean gives his hair an ungentle yank, curves his hand round the side of Sam’s face, and Sam turns his smile against Dean’s palm and nips. He breathes a promise against Dean's wrist and reaches for the lube.

Sam opening him is something new, for all Dean's done this before. Anything between him and Sam is nothing but itself, nothing like anything else. Sam's fingers push in, scissor, withdraw, move in small, intimate circles, learning every millimeter. Sam’s tongue sticks out the corner of his mouth with concentration, like when he’d had to build things with popsicle sticks for school twenty-odd years ago. Dean wants to laugh at him, kiss him, open him up and fuck him in turn – they’ll get to that – wants this to go on forever, wants Sam inside him, now, all the way, all of Sam, every moment of him right up till now. Every word of touch between them these last six months is concentrated here in Sam’s fingers circling inside him. When Sam presses on his prostate Dean shouts and almost comes right then and there.

Sam slaps Dean’s thigh, admonishing, pulls his fingers out, sits back on his heels. He strokes lazily over his dick, pulling at himself, eyes hot on Dean, spreading lube and Dean’s smell down the flushed, delicate skin of his shaft, over the head, breath catching, and, fucking Christ, enough with the foreplay already.

“Now would be good,” says Dean, and makes to turn over, kneel up, get a good grip on the bedpost. Sam shakes his head, sharp and wicked. Before Dean can even let out an indignant squawk Sam has lunged at him and fucking _lifted_ him off of the bed, has him slammed against the wall. Dean opens his mouth to protest and moans instead as Sam’s chest crowds hard against his, as Sam’s teeth fasten at the junction of neck and shoulder. When Sam looks up he’s flushed and grinning, pupils blown black.

He thrusts hard against Dean’s hip, and Dean’s hands come up to curl around his shoulders without Dean’s volition. Sam kisses Dean, fucking his tongue into his mouth, claiming his breath with his lips, and Dean is shifting his hips, trying to get at Sam’s hard length, hole wet and empty, balls throbbing with need. He makes to wrap his leg around Sam, and Sam is there, arms under his thighs, hands on his ass, lifting him. This is fucking ridiculous. This is fucking amazing. Sam’s muscles are bulging, veins standing out, chest heaving with effort, and then his cock is nudging at Dean’s hole, and Dean is sliding down onto him.

He’s split in two, the burn is incredible. Sam is trembling with effort. Dean’s legs are locked round him. Dean can feel every burning inch of Sam’s cock in him, filling him, branding him. Sam’s face is as laid open as Dean feels, fierce, naked want, and he’s rocking forward, lifting sharply into Dean. Dean hadn’t thought Sam could go deeper, right to the heart. Right where Sam’s always been, anyway.

Dean tightens his legs. Sam leans in close, breath harsh in his ear, and then he’s thrusting hard, again and again, pounding into Dean, pounding Dean into the wall. Dean closes his eyes and behind the shut lids he sees Sam’s arm lift and fall, a loose powerful arc, hammer striking the nails dead on, driving them through the wood in one sure stroke. Sparks radiate out as Sam hits his sweet spot and Dean yells, hot come spurting where his dick is trapped against Sam. He hears Sam suck in his breath as Dean’s ass clenches around him, and then Sam is driving straight up once more, releasing scalding heat into the aftershocks still jolting through Dean. Dean opens his eyes and sees Sam’s soundless cry in his face. _Yes, yes, yes_. All of it. Everything.

Sam slumps against the wall for a moment, getting his breath and crushing Dean’s out of him. Then he crouches a little to pull out, an obscene sucking sound, and lets Dean’s shaking legs back down to solid floor. A dribble of come leaks down Dean’s thigh. He staggers back to the bed, Sam somehow beside him, collapses, and pulls Sam against him, mass of muscle, smell of sweat, dick softening, belly sticky with Dean’s come. Sam smiles, a small private smile. He kisses Dean’s ear, the corner of his mouth, strokes the sweaty spikes of his hair. Then his smile goes smug. He gestures from Dean to himself, makes an exaggerated interrogative face, _how was it?_. Asshole.

“You’re a goddamn show-off,” says Dean. “You’ll have a bad back when you’re old.” When Sammy is old and creaky and white-haired, bitchier than ever with his bad back, and still alive. Eighty, ninety. Hell, a hundred.

Sam grins, wicked and sated and unrepentant. He licks the stinging sweat off a bite mark in Dean’s shoulder. Then his face is hovering over Dean’s, gone so serious that Dean closes his eyes when they kiss.

Dean wakes next morning to the drip, drip, drip of the thaw, Sam’s fingers skimming his cheekbones, his eyebrows, his lips.

 

It gets to be routine, over the next few weeks, Sam waking him up by tracing his features, touching as though he’s blind rather than mute. Fucking irritating at six-thirty in the fucking morning. Dean groans and bats Sam’s hand away, closes his eyes again. There’s a creak of bedsprings as Sam stands, groggy footsteps, the distant sound of Sam pissing, the toilet flushing, water running. Upstairs bathroom. Sam. Dean relaxes into a vague, warm sense of accomplishment. Sam’s steps fade down the stairs. Dean’s almost back to sleep when the smell of coffee drifts in, aromatic ghost of caffeine jump-starting his brain. He groans again and gets up.

The windows are open in the kitchen. The last dirty patch of snow has vanished from the north corner of the garden, and the grass is getting green. It’s time they tackled the outside of the house. Enough with the tar paper chic. Dean pours coffee into his giant mug and flicks his thumb against Sam’s cereal bowl. Sam scowls and looks up.

“Clapboard or shingles, Sammy?” Dean asks, tapping Sam’s wrists. Right hand or left hand.

And Sam says, “Shingles.”


End file.
